Shows how corrupted they are...

CPAC’s new boogeyman: China

This year’s agenda reflects a stark shift in conservative priorities — and Russia is missing.

By BEN SCHRECKINGER

Last year, the title of a panel at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference posed a simple question — “What is the Biggest Threat to the U.S.?” — and offered three options: China, Russia or rogue states like North Korea.

Now, the results are in. “China, the global menace,” warns the title of one panel at this year’s conference. “21st Century terminator: How China is using 5G and AI to take over the world,” warns another. A third China-focused panel borrows its title from a book by Winston Churchill about the runup to World War II. The words “Russia,” “Iran,” “North Korea” and “terrorism” do not appear on this year’s agenda.

The Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, which runs Wednesday through Saturday, serves as the premiere annual gathering of right-leaning activists and offers a barometer of trends in conservative thinking.

This year’s sudden focus on China marks a moment of flux for conservative foreign policy priorities. The Islamic State is crippled, al-Qaida is quiet and public fear of terrorism is at a recent low. Meanwhile President Donald Trump, whose campaign is under investigation for possible collusion with the Kremlin, says the U.S. can befriend Russia and polls show that the country’s president, Vladimir Putin, has grown more popular among Republicans since Trump’s election.

The new emphasis also reflects a desire on the part of CPAC organizers to promote the Trump administration’s priorities, according to a person involved with planning the event. Trump and his top officials have made challenging China’s rise — through issues like trade, military power and cybersecurity — one of their top priorities.

“They are doing this to help President Trump,” said the person. “They believe China is a big part of Trump’s presidency and a source of his foreign policy victories.”

The ACU’s executive director, Dan Schneider, said the agenda was the result of months of meetings with conservative groups. Schneider also cited his own experience living in China three decades ago, including the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. "I have seen firsthand what the Chinese Communist Party is capable of,” he said. “China is the single greatest threat to peace on Earth."

Trump, who has taken a more confrontational approach to China than his recent predecessors, has presided over a hardening of conservative opinion toward the country. Before Trump’s rise and his pursuit of aggressive trade measures against China and other nations, free-market, pro-trade ideas dominated the conservative movement.

“For a long time there was a lot of money flowing into the free market right to defend trade at all costs, and I think a lot of conservatives, including hawks, may have looked the other way for some time as a result,” said Christopher Hull, a conservative foreign policy hand who until recently served as executive vice president at the Center for Security Policy, a think tank founded by CPAC regular Frank Gaffney.

"You're now hearing views that would have been unthinkable even just a couple years ago," said Gordon Chang, a China-watcher who is participating in all three CPAC panels. Chang, a hard-liner who calls for disengagement from China, said his once-fringe view is being taken more seriously across the political spectrum. "I used to say these things and people would look at me and say, ‘Are you out of your mind?’" No longer, he said.

Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, a China hawk who praised Chang as a “huge piece of manpower,” compared this year’s focus on China to the conference’s focus on the Soviet Union in the 1970s and ’80s, when former President Ronald Reagan led the movement. “This is like what CPAC would be at the height of the Cold War," he said.

“CPAC is sending a powerful message to the conservative movement by the depth and breadth of the panels.”

Before Trump’s presidency, CPAC speakers favored other targets. “Putin’s Russia: A New Cold War?” asked a panel in 2015. U.S.-Russia relations have only gotten worse since then. But that question won’t be on the table at this year’s event.

Similarly, Islamic terrorism was a major theme at recent CPAC gatherings. Four years ago, former Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, then preparing to seek the Republican presidential nomination, famously boasted at CPAC that his experience in political battles with labor unions had prepared him to take on the Islamic State. “I want a commander in chief who will do everything in their power to make sure the threat from Islamic terrorists will not show up on our soil,” he said. “If I can take on 100,000 protesters, I can do the same across the world.” But in December, Trump declared victory over ISIS — prematurely, critics say — and the topic has receded from this year’s conference agenda.

For conference organizers, the task of projecting the administration’s view on China is complicated by the lack of consensus among his advisers about how to handle the rising Asian power.

For example, conference organizers considered a speaking role for Trump’s ambassador to China, former Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, who traveled to Washington last week to participate in ongoing trade talks with representatives from Beijing. But the organizers deemed him too soft on China and did not invite him, according to the person involved in the event’s planning.

Asked whether Branstad had been ruled out as a speaker, Schneider said only: “We looked for the best speakers who could highlight the threat of China." He also pointed to a Friday morning talk featuring Trump’s ambassador to Japan, Bill Hagerty.

"He's very strong on the threat of China to all of Asia," Schneider said.

Mike Pillsbury, a veteran China policy hand and adviser to Trump, will participate with Chang in a panel titled “The Gathering Storm,” a reference to Churchill’s book about the rise of Nazi Germany, on Saturday, when Trump is also scheduled to address the conference in separate remarks.

Though both Pillsbury and Chang fall on the hawkish side, Pillsbury advocates for engagement with China, a position far more conciliatory than Chang’s. Pillsbury said he expects the conference to be marked by lively debate on China, as the conservative movement attempts to formulate a new consensus.

"What the conservative view on China should be,” he said, “Has not been defined yet."